3 Tips for Saying Goodbye to 2020
2020 has not been the year any of us expected or wanted. So, it may sound strange when I suggest that we don’t waste this year. But, hear me out.
More than any other year, most of us are eager for 2020 to be over. Myself included. I’ve called this year a “nightmare” more than once, yearning to wake up to my pre-COVID-19 life. Yet, it occurred to me the other day that this attitude could cost us something valuable.
It all started with a quote from Dr. Timothy Keller:
“How you respond to the troubles in your life will go a long way toward whether or not you ever, ever develop courage, ever develop patience, ever develop compassion, ever develop sobriety and humility, ever develop any of those things. Don’t waste your sorrows.”
Previously, I had never thought of sorrows as something that could be wasted. Or, conversely, as something that could be used. Sorrows had always been something to be endured, overcome, or avoided. But used? That idea intrigued me.
Transforming Through Adversity
Most of us can relate to the notion that growth happens because of the difficult times in life. Indeed, pressure, discomfort, and adversity are necessary ingredients for transformation. We see this in the way our bodies respond to training and in how nature responds to difficult forces.
We can only grow stronger muscles if we lift heavier and heavier weights over time. No resistance, no muscles. Trees can only grow tall and stable if they grow their roots down deep in the soil, and they do this by resisting the winds that beat against them. No forceful winds, no stability to grow to the tallest heights.
Likewise, sorrows and suffering provide us with an opportunity to develop and transform in ways not possible when life is easy.
How we show up during the difficult times in life determines whether or not we become stronger, wiser, kinder, and better people.
As Dr. Keller’s words illuminate, adversities like those we have faced in 2020 are opportunities to become more: more courageous, more patient, more compassionate, more humble. We cannot develop these or other essential character virtues without going through a situation that calls for their use.
You see, it’s not trouble that causes us to become better people. Participating in life makes trouble inevitable, and not everyone comes out the other side in a better state.
We all go down one of three roads when we encounter trouble: Trouble can destroy us. Trouble can leave us unchanged. Or, trouble can help to transform us. It takes conscious work and determination to choose to be transformed in the midst of trouble.
A New Perspective on the Difficult Experiences of 2020
This year has dealt us one challenge and one sorrow after another. COVID-19 has taken our loved ones from us, created a global state of threat and fear, isolated us from one another, disrupted school and childcare, ended employment, taxed relationships, and overwhelmed our healthcare system.
We have had to face the ugly truth of the still very real systemic racism in our country. And, we have experienced greater political divisiveness and unrest than we have seen in decades. All this and more on top of the “regular” sorrows and suffering we have personally experienced this year.
How we view these challenges matters. Our perspective determines not only what we see, but also what we feel, how we behave, what options we have available to us and whether we will feel hope or despair.
Each of us gets to decide: will the sorrows and adversities of 2020 destroy me or will I use them to transform myself?
Just like some flowers require the dark to bloom, some people also need the dark times in life to grow and transform. I call us Night Bloomers. Perhaps the darkness in 2020 is setting us up to bloom.
3 Tips for Saying Goodbye to 2020
Here are three ways we can both say goodbye to 2020 and become “more” as result of the suffering we have experienced this this year:
1. Express Your Emotions
Before we can find closure from a difficult situation, relationship, or year, we must first feel and express our emotions. I call this “grieving before growing.”
When we deny or suppress our emotions, they build up inside of us and can cause physical and mental dis-ease. Feeling and giving voice to our emotions allows us to honor ourselves and our experience.
There are many ways we can express our emotions. We can journal, share with a close friend, work with a therapist, confide in a clergy member, or even just create space in our lives to be with our emotions.
The goal is not to make a home in grief, but rather to acknowledge, process, and allow the emotions to move through us.
2. Mine Your Mess
“Mine your mess” is a phrase I use with my clients to describe the process of looking back at what has happened in our lives, so that we can learn from our painful experiences and our mistakes. This knowledge helps us to make the changes we need to grow and transform.
Reflect on this past year and the challenges you have faced. What have you learned about yourself? What have you learned about others? About life? About what’s important to you? About what isn’t worth your time or your emotional energy?
You can leave the mess in 2020, but don’t leave the insights and wisdom behind!
3. Set an Intention to Bloom
Usually the pain and suffering that enters our lives is out of our control. However, setting an intention to develop certain character traits or to create a new focus for our lives can provide us with a sense of control and agency during difficult times.
You can set an intention to bloom in the dark by answering these questions: Who do I want to have become at the end of 2020? How do I want to show up in 2021? Going forward, how will I remember and implement what I’ve learned in 2020?
As we wrap up, let me just clarify two things: Sorrow and suffering is never good or right. I’m not glad the pandemic or the other individual and collective tragedies happened this year.
Nor do we need to seek out suffering so that we can become “more.” Like you, I would never have willingly chosen the painful events that have occurred in my life.
What I’m saying is that if we’re experiencing trouble and suffering, we have been given an opportunity. What we do with this opportunity is up to us.
What if 2020 isn’t a nightmare here to destroy us, but rather an opportunity for us to transform individually and as a nation? What if this is our chance to bloom in the dark?
2020 has been a hard year. Let’s say goodbye, but also let’s not waste it.
Connect with Me:
Website: www.DrMichellePearce.com
Instagram: @bloomwithdrmichelle
If you’d like to participate in an online workshop called “Saying Goodbye to 2020” using the tools above, please see my website: www.DrMichellePearce.com. To find out more about blooming in the dark, check out my newest book, “Night Bloomers: 12 Principles for Thriving in Adversity.”
